Leningrad versus Sevastopol
Over the years, many historians have debated over why Leningrad did not surrender to the Germans despite their continuous bombardment and shelling of the city after 900 days. With this chapter I attempt to explain why Leningrad failed but, more importantly, why Sevastopol fell. Actually, why Sevastopol fell is a largely unexplored area of Barbarossa.
Comparison
|
|
Leningrad |
Sevastopol |
Days |
900 |
247 |
German Commander |
Leeb |
Manstein |
Soviet Commander |
Zhukov |
Zhukov |
Location |
Karelian Isthmus |
Crimean Peninsula |
Population |
3,000,000 |
250,000 |
Rescue Attempts
àLeningrad: Annually 1941-1943. Unsuccessful but stopped German plans
àSevastopol: Once—1942
Capture Attempts:
àLeningrad: Twice in 1942 and
1943.
àSevastopol: Once
in 1942
Thus
ends our discussion of the facts. But the question still lingers: Why did
Leningrad not fall ‘like a leaf’ (as Hitler claimed) despite 900 continuous
days of siege and Sevastopol fall after 247?
Bravery
is not an answer. Both the citizens of Leningrad and Sevastopol participated in
the defence of their cities bravely, producing munitions and anti-tank
trenches, thus aiding the local garrisons.
Was
Leningrad in a more strategic position than Sevastopol? Definitely not.
Sevastopol could be easily supplied via the sea, while trucks going to
Leningrad had to cross Lake Ladoga. (Many of them failed to reach their
destination).
Was
the decision to attack Sevastopol, the most obvious, the critical factor? No.
Keep the siege of Sevastopol on for 300 more days and you will find that the
city is in a more desperate situation, probably on the brink of surrender, than
Leningrad after 1000 days.
Is
population an answer? A study has shown that 70% of all historical battles were
won with the country or coalition with the larger population. Surely this
applies with a siege too? No! A larger population means that a larger amount of
food has to be supplied!
Do
the commanders make a difference? Yes, Field-Marshal Manstein was one of the
most brilliant commanders Germany ever had, but he was still subservient to
Hitler’s temperament. (No disrespect to von Leeb—he was a wonderful commander
too.)
What
then is the decisive factor? The answer, dear reader, is what the Germans had
in mind with the city of Leningrad.
QUOTE
…The war was Hitler’s element, not because he
had military genius, but because war gave him “carte blanche” to carry out the
genocide in the East which he had been planning for twenty years. So long as he
was still confident of winning, he had no compunctions about confiding his
murderous intentions to his staff; both his dinner table conversation and his
instructions to his field commanders were full of dire threats and apocalyptic
prophesies. The city of Moscow, to take a notable example, was to be completely
extinguished. During the summer of 1941, when the Soviet capital seemed almost
within his grasp, he told his generals that
‘…no German soldier should set foot in this city. It should be encircled in a white arc. No soldier or civilian, whether man, woman or child, should be permitted to leave it. Every attempt to do so was to be turned back by force of arms. He (Hitler) had made preparations to flood Moscow and its environs my means of gigantic installations, and to submerge it completely. Where Moscow had stood a mighty artificial lake would be created, and the metropolis of the Russian people would be forever removed from the sight of the civilized world…’
Leningrad, whose capture seemed imminent, was
to be accorded the same treatment, through minus the artificial lake. On 29
September 1941, the Führer’s orders were transmitted to Army Group North -
Subject: Future of the City of Peterburg
II. The Führer is determined to remove the
city of Petersburg from the face of the earth. After the defeat of Soviet
Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban
areas.
III. It is intended to encircle the town and
level it to the ground by means of artillery bombardment using every calibre of
weapon, and continual air bombardment.
IV. Requests for surrender resulting from the
city’s encirclement will be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding
the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our very
existence, there can be no interest on our part in maintaining even a part of
this large urban population.
In other words, the population of Leningrad
was to be eradicated.[1]...
Therefore I conclude that the siege of Leningrad was a siege unique in history, conducted for the purpose not of forcing a city's surrender, but of wiping that city and its entire population from the face of the earth. German troops had instructions to shoot down any inhabitants of the city who, driven by hunger, tried to leave the encirclement in the direction of the German lines.